Avada Kedavra
by arctique48
Summary: It meant unmake. Collection of Death Eater oneshots.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Hogwarts etc belongs to JKR.**

**AN:** Yay, something new. I'm on a bit of a Death Eater kick, might make this a series of one-shot type things, not sure. Happy Red Nose Day!

-

_It was never what he'd wanted. _

You woke up, you ate breakfast, you talked to people. It was school; it was what everyone did.

You talked to people and people talked back. They'd talk of quidditch and classes and girls. But then just occasionally they'd talk of things he didn't understand. There'd be whispers in the common room, shadows on fire lit faces. They said he was too young so of course he felt inclined to listen. Immortality was one word they used. Cleansing was another.

Somehow around that fire a man established himself as god.

If not recognised by the general public it was definitely recognised by the troubled adolescents in his school. What was it they'd seen in him? Salvation? Hope?

But they didn't want saving. They didn't want freedom. All they'd wanted was more. To have more power than their fathers. To stand taller. To _mean _something.

_He remembers this. _

_He remembers this and he focuses hard on that feeling and when he hears the crunch and her gagged whimper he closes his mind to everything else. Memories. His Lord would punish him, but his Lord is distracted. _

They would cluster around the fire with stories fit for myths and legends, a handsome prince, banished by impostors, sent off into another world to find himself. He travelled, they'd say. So many places. Places they barely dared dream of, places of dark ancient magic, with its dark ancient curses and its dark ancient gods. Some said he met these gods. Some said he was one.

_Her screaming is acute but she is gagged and he knows it is only his mind. Months ago he's not sure he would have heard that scream, but experience broadens the pallet of the imagination. _

Trials of fire and rituals by moonlight. He'd unlocked something. Whether inside the very bowels of the earth or in the depths of his soul itself he broke the catch and out came a power so immense that the corridors of Slytherin were alive with it.

Their heir, the portraits whispered.

_There was sobbing in his mind too, but that he knew wasn't hers. His mother's maybe. Or his sister's. He recognised it, anyhow. It was almost comforting as his eyes lay rooted to that face. _

Dark green hangings hid him as he heard the voices outside his dorm. 'Returned to England', said one. 'Join him', said another.

He'd have followed them then if he'd had the guts. He'd have walked right out the castle, to pay homage or offer services or simply bow at the feet of this new hero.

He was on their side, that's what the whispers said.

_There was another crunch and he knew it as bones breaking. There were sharp breaths and he knew them to be his own._

He was on their side but what their side was he was uncertain. Pure – he knew that much, and righteous, whatever that meant. They were fighting for freedom they said. Deflecting an invasion that could wipe them off the face of the earth.

He'd read books. He thought he understood invasions and the thought scared him. It scared him to the point of belief. He'd have followed them that night, but there was transfiguration first tomorrow, and they all knew what happened when Dumbledore found you skiving.

_He wanted to screw shut his eyes, to close them so tight his head folded in on itself, engulfed the moment and wiped it from his memory. She was speaking now, gag removed. She was speaking and her voice was softer than any voice should be after so many screams (he'd heard them, silent and echoing). Her voice was soft and her words were frail; wisps of maybes set loose to the wind -, they fell through his head while he heard nothing but the sound. A cool breeze that had lost its final struggle. He knew what came next._

He hadn't followed then. Nor the next time. But months on and those students grew to such heights he admired them in a way he couldn't quite express. It wasn't idolatry; it was inspiration. He followed them then. To the dark field with the dark cloaks and the dark prince standing amongst them all.

_His Lord stood up then, stepping back from the tortured female. He looked at him and there was command in the red depths of that gaze. _

And then he threw back his hood and he wasn't dark. He was pale and he was power, he was cold and he was burning with a force so intense it hurt to look on. And he was thin, so thin and pale he must be dead and yet he lived. He was man and yet at once he was also snake and magic and the incarnation of so many imaginations. He was a god.

And he spoke like one too. Inspirational in a way no teacher had been. He spoke of things that mattered to them and then of things that didn't in such a way that suddenly they did. He spoke of them with bitter passion that scorched like ice, like magic. He'd said words then, that they'd never heard uttered. Dark words, rank and rotting with power that was never meant to be controlled. He'd spoke them then and they'd been beautiful. He'd spoke them then and made them something to dream of, to fight towards, to aspire to.

_Bottomless eyes wide with fathoms of power and greed and bitterness. His heart was dark and his soul fraying and yet he still had a gaze that could sear you as you stood. Make your skin crawl with ice-cold flame. He looked and said, 'Now, MacNair, or would you like a knife?'_

_He hadn't wanted a knife. Knifes were for muggles and Herbology. Knives were toys. He raised his wand._

He'd spoken the words and the sky had been lit, the air hummed with magic and the taste of blood burned into them from that glow. Green, like the grass and the trees and the drapes around his bed. The light died and the body fell still. A muggle maybe? It hadn't mattered.

_He focussed his hate. That rage the god had taught him. He'd focussed it until he thought he too could be bitter and snake-like and immortal. He thought that he too could be pale and thin and so like death yet live. He focussed on that divide. On that rift between living and nothing. He focussed on it until his vision grew red and he could almost imagine it were his eyes, dyed forever the colour of his Lord's. His eyes were red and her face was nothing but the trace of a memory, that whisper on the wind. He felt the pulse in his neck, beating so slowly he might have been dying, felt his lungs creak open-closed, open-closed, he heard her confused squeaking like the far off wing beats of an owl and from his own mouth he heard the whipcrack of a spell._

"Avada Kedavra."

"Avada Kedavra," 

It meant unmake, their god had told them.

_There was bile in his throat - blood on his tongue - flame in his eyes and green, green, green – all around, it was the sky the ground the faces of the people around him – it was their cloaks and their hands and their souls as his vision encompassed everything, the world and all within it before imploding. And then he saw only her. He saw her as a baby. He saw her getting married. He saw her first kiss, her first dance, her first swim in the lake with her dad. He saw her playing on the swings and he saw her playing with her daughter. He saw a girl call 'Mummy' and he saw her turn. He saw her the daughter, the sister, the wife, the mother. He saw her soul and he saw her die. He _felt_ her die. _

_In an instant she was inside him and she _was_ him. She stole the breath from his lungs and the blood from his head and she screamed to him. _

_He fainted. _

_Above him the god had laughed._

He'd taken the mark that night. And then he'd returned to school and for the first time seen the thestrals. His eyes had been opened, he thought. Beasts of such beauty and darkness, they must be slaves to his new snake-like Lord. He'd watched them that night, not knowing or understanding their true nature, but hoping a schoolboy hope that one day he'd reveal those strange, amazing creatures to others. Open eyes in the way his Lord had opened his.

-

**AN: **MacNair. And because I read _Heart Of Darkness_ last month.

_**If you've read it please review it.**_


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Hogwarts etc belongs to JKR 

**AN:** Yeah, this is going to a collection of drabblish Death Eater oneshots, methinks. I really am just picking names and running with them.

"Mulciber_ - One of the earliest (c.1955) members of the Death Eaters (HBP20). Imperius Curse specialist, who had already been captured by the time Karkaroff came to trial" _

– **HP Lexicon** (gotta love it).

-

**Imperio**

-

He was afraid (so afraid), his heart hammered in his throat as he forced his family through the fireplace. _("To your mother's!" he hissed at his wife._)

But she was crying. She was flinching away from the green dust, away from the flames, she was in his arms and his heart was breaking. (_"Please," he whispered.) ("I love you," was all he got in response_.)

His breathing was ragged, his fingers cold, She wouldn't leave him.

_The light was blue. _

Hands shaking he cast up barriers, but it was no good, they were already here. He stood at the window, trying to tune out his wife's quiet sobbing. Their boys were too young to understand; the youngest started crying. (_"They're here for _me_.") ("We can't leave without you.")_

There were footsteps outside. The fire went out. In the darkness he felt a warm hand on his back. (_"When you fight, I fight.") _

_Blue and cold. _

But then the door opened and she didn't. She didn't fight. She didn't get the chance. She fell like a stone. Like a rock through the air, plummeting with a crack. He'd wanted to cry, but he cursed instead, curses he'd promised he'd never let his sons hear. They were both crying. They thought their mother was dead. (He knew better though – the light hadn't been green. She was still breathing.)

He heard a laugh. It echoed through the room and silenced all spells. He looked into the shadows of his broken doorway and thought he saw a demon.

The world turned red with _crucio_. The pain was immense.

_It tasted of rain and of the wind from the sea. _

"I think you could be of great use to us, Mr Mulciber." It was a voice without humanity (without a soul).

He'd refused and the voice had made him scream. (He could hear it, the sound, not just through his ears, but through every nerve in his body.) (It was more than screaming, it was agony.) It began to chorus and he thought he heard the world join in. He thought choirs of angels felt his pain.

And then he opened his eyes.

His sons. His boys were screaming.

_He saw the beam, heard the words, and the world stilled. _

It was a sight that should have sent him reeling. It was a sight that should have propelled him to his feet and made him split the earth to its core with anger and burning pain. But it didn't. It just scared him. He fell to his knees and begged.

Then there was that laugh and their screams stopped. The demon's eyes were red as he looked into him. (Red like crucio.)

He would have flinched.

_He imagined a pause, and then it was upon him. _

"I know you back our cause, Mr Mulciber, and I believe that with persuasion you might back our methods too… What do you think?"

He hadn't spoken.

"Are you still unwilling, Mr Mulciber? You won't let me bribe you, persuade you or even threaten you… Perhaps you need to be forced?"

The demon was amused.

"I hear your father was well acquainted with this curse. You have his eyes. Blue. I think you would excel at it, also."

_It forced his pupils closed before ripping them wide and gaping (he thought he saw the heart of the world)._

He'd felt numb.

"There were once people who believed your eyes bared your soul, and that within your soul there was one curse that bowed to all others. Their oracles told me mine was torture. What is yours, Mulciber?"

He peered close, red eyes narrowing with studious interest.

_And then he saw nothing. Nothing but that light, blue and cold and searing. _

"Have you ever seen it's light, Mulciber? Have you ever seen the light of your soul?"

He couldn't have spoken if he'd wanted to, white fingers wrapped about his throat.

"Blue eyes, Mulciber," he smiled like the world was ending, "Royalty. Command, Power... Servitude."

The demon threw him back to the floor.

"_Imperio._"

His pupils flinched smaller in that split second before the light hit him and then suddenly they dilated, opening and opening and opening until he thought they might open forever and engulf his entire being, black holes in bloodshot pools. He saw blue masks and blue hats and blue eyes in blue shadows, there were blue trees and blue buildings and up up up there was a great blue moon, hanging cold in the light of _imperio_.

_He saw only its light and he bowed. He didn't have the will to question. _

And then there was silence. He was home, still on the floor. It was a silence that resonated; it lingered about his ears like a blue veil across the world before creaking like the thinnest layer of ice.

"Bow," it creaked. And he bowed.

"Curse," it creaked. And he cursed.

"Kill," it creaked. And kill he did, so many times it became less terrifying, the adrenaline less painful.

_He became a follower. He became a weapon. _

He was cursed and felt no pain. He was bankrupted and felt no loss. He was widowed and his heart didn't break.

He felt a blanket - cold and soft, like snow - engulf his soul. He felt it on his cheeks, under his hands, within his head. He felt it and it comforted him. He felt it and suddenly he could look into those eyes without fear, suddenly there were no demons.

_He shared his light (his peace). He shared it with those he was told to share it with. He shared it and showed no mercy._

Faces were still faces but when he smiled it was automatic, when spoke it was scripted and when he hugged his children he began to think that maybe, maybe this time he'd like it to end.

But it didn't. The cold blue glow of the world became all he'd ever known, and the peace was immense. Maybe he'd found God, he wondered once, passing a small church en route to the meeting. But then he'd laughed, because he hadn't found God, god had found him. God had broken into his family home in the middle of the night, god had whipped his children with spells and thrown his wife to the floor, god had taught him to kill because if he didn't his children would scream forever, if he didn't he'd become the enemy. And you didn't make enemies with god. So he bowed and he cursed and he killed and he called his god Lord and his god would smile the smile of a sadist and every once in a while, when these thoughts were most prominent his god would turn the world blue again with the whisper of _imperio _("_wouldn't want to getting ideas, would we?" he'd say_.)

And he learnt his curse; he learnt the magic his god tied to his soul. He learnt it and spread it and it was like his disease. He knew it so well.

_They feared him._

He'd whisper the word, that simple command. He'd speak and they'd obey. He'd speak and he'd see himself in their bowed heads, he'd see himself reflected in their eyes.

"_Imperio." _

Whether it was he that spoke it or his Lord, he'd see the light; it would fill his world and send his thoughts to their knees. And he didn't kill anymore, he enslaved. He enslaved others and then bowed himself, at once both victim and victor.

_He feared himself._

-

**AN:** I'm revising, honest.

**_If you've read it, please review it! _**


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